On racing minds

Not too long ago my sleep schedule was often hamstrung by the curse of the racing mind, wherein a tired human being thinks, imagines, and worries ceaselessly. We are all familiar with this curse.

Over the past few years I've been able to largely overcome it, though. My strategy is to internally narrate a story that I make up as I go. As long as I don't get too caught up in details or dialog, I soon nod off.

Doesn't always work though. If I'm overly distracted by something like gnawing hunger, narratives don't do shit. Hopefully this bowl of Trader Joe's popcorn will solve that so I can go to sleep and be semi-functional for work.

River atop a fuzzy blanket

Not River as in Yangtze, but River as in River Tam from Firefly. This is a cat named after her despite sharing practically nothing with the character. The human underneath the blanket and cat is Danielle.

Sorry if the post title made you expect some kind of mind blowing metaphysical treatise (or just something meta). All you get is a cat.

I still play poker sometimes

Mostly with a gaggle of mostly old folks. I like them a lot on aggregate, and individually I like (or dislike) some more than others. One of my favorites is the host, who shall be called J.

The game is a $30 freezeout NLHE tournament on Fridays, and usually there are 9 to 15 people in attendance. I'd estimate that I'm the second best player in the overall group (the best is a monster hand-reader who shall be called A--he's also one of my favorites), and I've made a decent overall profit over the course of the last couple years, since I started in 2011. But I don't really go for the money; I go for the game.

Ever since I retired from semi-pro poker I've really come to realize the value in playing with friends. Online play was impersonal, and playing live with strangers for competition feels two-dimensional. Playing with friends is fun, much as one would expect it should be. It doesn't really keep me fresh or make my game better, but it's a really good release. No matter how marginal my talent is, poker is a part of who I am now, and expressing that talent is a glorious thing.

It really makes me miss the old days in Katy, playing $3 games with John, Eric, Travis, and assorted characters. We spent countless hours together during that last year and last summer of high school, and I remember our first game, making $.05 bets on the flop with blinds at $.05/$.10, thinking that KA234 was a 4-high straight. Those games, those few pathetic dollars, meant so much. And we all got so much better, but damn did we still suck. Gloriously suck.

I didn't play at all when I got to GW, but when I transferred over to UT I lived with John, Tae, and Bradley, and we played with each other and with others. We went to Vegas when the three of them graduated and I lost several hundred bucks, but I'd already started to kill it online, and my nascent and abortive career was born.

Those are some good memories, and I would give a lot to relive them, or to re-enact them (with more success, of course). It was a beautiful mix of friendly play and fierce competition. There was an essence to my game that kept me afloat despite inexperience and questionable decision-making. It's not ingrained anymore, but sometimes I'm able to grasp at it for a stretch, channel a power that would make me dominant against mere mortals.

I am very much mortal myself, though. Better than most of my peers, but relegated to the lower amateur leagues by life and skill. I've played at local card rooms a couple of times in an attempt to win money (I did come within inches of a big payday last time, but left on the bubble), and I play with a group of mostly old folks on Fridays for fun. I'm making some good memories there, but they pale in comparison to 2003, 2004, 2007, and 2008.

I can't say I'm happy with my poker standing today, but I'm tremendously grateful for the opportunity to lay it on the line with people I'm comfortable with, a coterie that includes worthy opponents even if it does include a couple of assholes, sore losers, and fools. I think I want to talk about them more, lionize them the same way I've lionized my old friends, even if it's not at all the same thing. It's important for someone like me to have poker buddies to attach to. Someday I might not play with the same group for whatever reason (most likely because I probably won't live around here forever), and maybe I'll land with a better group, or even find old friends if fortune would be so immeasurably kind. But right now, I can say that I'm happy to have these mostly old folks.

From Yesterday's Lunch (my finest poem)

There once was a man named Cantay
And his name was not Hantay
His name was so fun
His name has no gun
Also his name is not Bantay

The cat on my lap
Loudly lies rumbling
And won't let me leave.

Fuck it, post #5

Fuck it, post #4

Not gonna lie, I don't want to go to bed. Danielle always makes me come to bed before I want to. She's right to try for a normalish schedule, but I don't like abiding by it because it just goes against what my body wants. I'm pretty sure that I can get my brain set to a different, much earlier equilibrium, but that wouldn't work here; my schedule involves coming to work relatively late and leaving relatively late. Not normal, not early. I'm stuck in a semi-stable non-ideal equilibrium.

Crap. That's a reasonable descriptor of several things in my life.

5-yearly Urinal Update

I still use 'em, but I definitely don't like them when they don't have dividers. Heck, I don't like them if more than one person is using them, dividers or no. And I don't like it when the sinks sit opposite the urinal(s) of a multi-person bathroom. And it's awful if people are waiting, especially if they're standing right behind you. And the urinals often sit too low, or somehow too high. And pee splatter during high-volume voiding is a serious issue that I can't satisfactorily resolve unless I'm standing a foot away and pointing at an angle such that the pee velocity is slowed. And shaking three times just isn't enough half the time; sometimes I have to get a bit more into it if I'm going to wind up with an acceptable trouser outcome. And there's often liquid pooled near and under--usually it's just water overflow from the flash mixed with small amounts of pee, but it's pretty gross.

Still use 'em though.

Sometimes I pretend to be a pirate

Blogger saved a draft of a post with this title but no text from 7/26/2010. I'm going to finish it.

I talked like a pirate then, and I talk like a pirate now. At work. Good to see that some things don't change after three years on the job.

Bryan Cranston looked at me and smiled

At least that's what I like to think it's true. Danielle, my Texan friends John and Steve, and I secured some of the best seats in the house (HH10 through 13, in case my reader(s) are interested) for a production of All the Way at the American Repertory Theater on the 11th, with Bryan Cranston starring as LBJ.

Danielle and I were in seats 12 and 13, at eye level of the players, dead center. I won't review the play here, but it was an excellent show, and the audience gave an immediate standing ovation at curtain. After the cast did their first bow Bryan Cranston looked ahead and appeared to make eye contact with me and half-smiled. This caused me to grin, and after the second bow he was looking towards me and smiling more broadly, and even appeared to almost nod. Needless to say, I was in disbelief, utterly twitterpated.

As we walked to the parking garage Danielle and I discussed the play, including the ovation. She felt the same eye contact that I did. We both knew that in all likelihood Mr Cranston was not smiling at either of us--and that he may not have been able to see us at all--but we preferred to think that he was smiling at both of us.

Of course, in my heart of hearts, I'm pretty sure he was smiling at me.

Can't enjoy senescence
And comfortable weather;
Winter is coming.